As its fare war with Virgin Australia heats up, Qantas has decided to stop releasing casualty figures.
That’s the gist of the Flying Kangaroo’s move to break with a decade long tradition of releasing monthly statistics on its yield, or the amount of profit it makes per passenger.
Qantas said the change would bring it in line with other carriers, but it comes as Australia’s two top airlines ramp up domestic capacity in a battle likely to damage both companies’ bottom lines.
Qantas and Jetstar have announced plans to increase capacity by 11 per cent through December, while Virgin Australia is upping its capacity by 9 per cent. Tiger Airways is also ramping its operations as it continues to bounce back from last year’s grounding.
In its July traffic numbers, released yesterday, Qantas acknowledged that its domestic yield was down “due to increased capacity in the domestic market,” but didn’t say by how much. The airline said its international yields were up due to its withdrawal from money losing routes, but again didn’t provide specifics.
Qantas’s domestic passenger numbers were also down, dropping 1.4 per cent in July from a year earlier. Jetstar saw a 1.6 per cent increase while QantasLink was up 2.9 per cent.
Qantas is expected to announce a code sharing alliance with Emirates this week in a deal that will be closely watched as a sign of the future for the airline’s beleaguered international operations, which lost $450 million last year.
